February 24th, 2007

Online coupons grow in popularity

I’ve consulted a few natural and organic foods companies on online coupons in the past. Especially if you have perishable products and sell only through retailers (not through your website), this can be an important tactic for you. You can still obtain direct results, as well as branding, if you use an effective online coupons strategy.

Online coupons have had slow growth against their paper counterparts, but their popularity is growing as marketers learn how to distribute them, as a New York Times article reports.

Internet coupon companies, like Coupons.com and CoolSavings.com, run sites where visitors can click on an offer and print out a coupon to take to a store. But executives at Coupons.com, and elsewhere believe that consumers may be more receptive to online coupons if they come across them while seeking out other, related content, according to the NY Times article. For instance, if a recipe they are viewing contains an offer for an ingredient, or if a news article links to a coupon for a product or service it mentions.

Not everyone subscribes to that logic. Matt Wise, the chief executive of Q Interactive, which operates CoolSavings.com, said that his company tried a similar approach but saw a lukewarm response from consumers.

CoolSavings distributes most of the coupons it offers through its Web site, but a growing number of its clients choose to deliver offers by e-mail, Mr. Wise said. “We see more retailers wanting to create ongoing dialogue,” he said, “not just pass out the coupons anonymously.”

This is the approach I also advocate – email can be very effective in combination with online coupons. And why give coupons away when you can begin that dialogue in return for dispensing them online? The house list you create can be invaluable for extending your ROI.

Retailers and consumer goods manufacturers are growing more interested in online coupons. A recent survey of 100 large retailers by the E-tailing Group, a consultancy, revealed that 20 now offer online coupons, compared with just five a year ago.